The Acronis Data Protection Platform delivers a complete set of data protection solutions for backup, disaster recovery, and secure file sync and share. Empowering Acronis partners to tap into the growing and under-served market for cloud data protection services, the platform supports the broadest range of deployment models, business models, and technology environments in use by service providers, resellers and distributors today.

“The Acronis offering transforms the way data protection is delivered to end-user customers by service providers and resellers,” says Peter French, MD of local Acronis distributor Synapsys.
Also released locally is the new version of Acronis Backup Cloud, the company’s leading cloud backup solution, as well as Acronis Files Cloud, its file sync and share solution. Synapsys is also announcing the local availability of Acronis Disaster Recovery Service, its all-in-one solution for backup and disaster recovery.

Cloud fuels explosive growth in data protection
As businesses worldwide become more vulnerable to data loss and disasters, many are looking to cloud solutions for more protection, especially mid-sized companies and small businesses. In fact, IDC Research found that data storage, backup and recovery is the #1 cloud infrastructure use case among businesses with 55% currently using or planning to use these external cloud infrastructure services in the next 12 months.

Complete Data Protection
Based on an advanced cloud architecture, the Acronis Data Protection Platform delivers software-as-a-service solutions, including backup, disaster recovery and file sync and share. The platform is powered by the Acronis AnyData Engine – a set of unique, deep, and powerful data protection technologies that capture, store, recover, control, and access any data from any location.

Flexibility to support multiple business models
The Acronis Data Protection Platform supports a broad range of deployments and business models to meet the needs of all types of partners, including:
* Resellers – hosted by Acronis with easy-to-use SKUs to sell as services.
* Service Providers – hosted, managed and branded as their own, and powered by Acronis.
Highly flexible pay-per-use pricing models also make it easy for partners to expand their current offerings with new data protection services to upsell and cross-sell.

Broad support for technologies and environments
The Acronis Data Protection Platform is designed to meet the unique needs of service provider environments and supports a broad range of systems in use today, including XEN, KVM, Linux, Virtuozzo, Docker, Open-Xchange, and MySQL, in addition to Windows, Mac, Hyper-Visor, VMware, RHEV, Oracle VM, Microsoft Exchange and SQL. The platform features built-in automation, allowing partners to quickly and easily scale out the solution to support millions of end-user customers as their business grows.

New version of Acronis Backup Cloud supports more systems and devices
Acronis Backup Cloud is a proven cloud backup and recovery solution. The new version of Acronis Backup Cloud is available now in South Africa and includes many new features, such as:
* Expanded support for Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, and Mac OS X environments.
* Initial seeding capabilities to easily move large volumes of data to the cloud.
* Local backup recovery directly from within a centralised management console.

Introducing Acronis Files Cloud for secure file, sync & share in the cloud
Acronis Files Cloud provides office and mobile workers with safe file access, sync, and share (FSS) in an easy-to-use and secure cloud service. The solution helps service providers and partners quickly address the growing need for businesses to securely support BYOD and the rise of mobile workers. Unlike consumer-grade solutions including Box, Dropbox, and less secure FSS products, Acronis Files Cloud provides the ability to store documents and business files in a private cloud, while offering comprehensive security and controls – including encryption, audit trails, and user management.

Local availability of Acronis Disaster Recovery Service
Acronis Disaster Recovery Service is an all-in-one hybrid cloud solution for backup and disaster recovery that protects files, servers, and entire data centres. With a focus on addressing both recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO), the solution is designed for companies that have extremely low tolerance for data loss, downtime, or risk mitigation.
Acronis Disaster Recovery will be available in South Africa in Q4 2015, according to local Acronis distributor Synapsys.

“For companies everywhere, suffering from data loss and disasters is not a matter of if, but when – it will happen,” said Serguei Beloussov, Co-Founder and CEO at Acronis. “With the introduction of the Acronis Data Protection Platform, we make complete data protection easy, complete and affordable for businesses of all sizes and empower service providers and resellers to capitalise on this massive market opportunity.”

“The Acronis vision for delivering a comprehensive cloud platform that addresses backups, disaster recovery and more should appeal to a broad range of companies looking for something better than isolated point-solutions from disconnected services – whether they want to manage a full data protection solution themselves or rely on the trusted relationship they have with their service provider or reseller,” said Jason Buffington, ESG Senior analyst of Data Protection. “Acronis’ venerable name in data protection, combined with the flexibility and ease-of-use enabled by the cloud, ought to inspire many organisations to re-imagine how they deliver IT services while staying protected against data loss and disasters.”

Currently, several ISPs and MSPs in South Africa have already implemented Acronis Backup Cloud, and others are in an advanced testing stage, with very positive results, according to Synapsys. “Customers with multi-petabyte backup requirements are enthused, and we expect several large production deployments to go live in October and November,” enthuses French.